ICANN meets to discuss its policy

The organization that oversees Internet addresses will spend this weekend reviewing the best ways to represent and engage the global Internet community.

A top agenda item is a draft proposal to reduce to six, from nine, the number of board members who represent the general Internet community. The proposal has already drawn criticisms from people who believe ICANN favors business over the general public.

Meetings began Friday and run through tomorrow.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, was formed three years ago as a nonprofit, private group to set policies on Internet addresses. Its decisions affect how Internet users reach Web sites and send e-mail.

The US government, which funded the Net's early development, had essentially coordinated Internet functions through a series of contractors, grantees and volunteers, but it is trying to transfer those responsibilities to the private sector.

Currently, nine of ICANN's 19 board members are at-large members who are supposed to represent the general public. However, how to go about selecting these members is controversial.

"There's been no consensus on how these directors should be elected," said Andrew McLaughlin, ICANN's chief policy officer.

ICANN held elections last year to fill five of the nine at-large seats, leaving the other four filled through appointments.

Instead of proceeding with elections for the remaining spots, ICANN formed a study committee, which tentatively concluded that the general public should have only six seats, all directly elected.

The committee also favored limiting votes to owners of domain names. Before, anyone aged 16 and over could vote as long as they had valid e-mail and postal addresses.

Andy Mueller-Maguhn, one of the current elected at-large members, complained about the proposal and the exclusion of Internet users who do not want or cannot afford a domain name.

"I think the board of ICANN shouldn't consist of people with direct commercial interests," he said.

"There needs to be a balance between commercial and public use of this infrastructure."

After a German magazine published a long article on the voting process, 20,000 Germans signed up to vote while only 2,000 French did the same despite both countries having similar Internet populations, he said.